VU Fellowship Programme

You may apply for the fellowship if you have applied for the first year of a full-time Masters programme taught in English at VU.

• You must have a GPA of at least 80% of the highest mark
• You must not have earned your previous degree in the Netherlands.
• You must not be of Dutch nationality.
• You must not hold any other scholarship, or receive funds, except for possibly the Holland Scholarship.
• You are conditionally or unconditionally admitted to the first year of a full-time English-taught Master’s programme at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam starting per September 2024. Please note that:
  • students starting in February cannot apply,
  • joint programmes where VU Amsterdam does not administer the admission process are excluded from VUFP.
• If you are doing a two-year Masters programme and have received the scholarship in the first year, it will only be extended to the second year if you complete 100% of credits.

Students already enrolled in a two-year Master’s programme who have not been awarded the VUFP scholarship in 2023/2024 are not eligible to apply for the VUFP scholarship for 2024/2025.

The whole application process spans over about six months. The following steps must be followed:

• Register for a Master's programme in Studielink, the common portal for institutions in the Netherlands, and after that in VUnet, the portal specific to Vrije Universiteit. You must apply for an English-taught Masters programme between October 1, 2023 and December 1, 2023.
• Submit an application for VUFP in VUnet before February 1, 2024 11:59 pm. Three documents are required to be submitted in PDF format and upload it in the Scholarship section of your personal dashboard on vu.nl (located on the Complete Registration page):
• A transcript of your qualifying degree, with a clear explanation of the GPA calculation, which must be at least 80% of the highest possible mark.
• A motivation letter or SOP of about 500 words answering these questions:
  • Why do you want to study this specific Master's programme?
  • What are your future goals?
  • Why do you deserve the VUFP scholarship?
• Your CV, preferably in the Europass format.
• All the applications received before the deadline will be first checked by the respective faculties, and then sent to the Central VUFP Committee for evaluation.
• Every applicant will receive an email or a notification by mid-March 2024 (6 weeks after the deadline). informing them whether they have been selected or not.

The selected students must accept the offer by end of March 2024 (2 weeks after the results have been published),via VUnet.

NOTE: When applying for the VUFP scholarship, you automatically also apply for the HSP. No separate application is necessary. 

Please note that you can submit your application only once. Make sure to double check if your application is complete and sufficient before submitting it. You will not be allowed to submit it again!

The awardees are selected on the basis of their academic excellence, which will be analysed from their:

• Motivation letter
• Quality of previous education
• Academic record

Recipients are required to maintain their grades for the duration of the course, failure of which may result in the termination of the scholarship.